Philosophy Dictionary of ArgumentsHome
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| Leviathan: Leviathan is a 1651 political work by Thomas Hobbes arguing that a strong, centralized authority - an absolute sovereign - is necessary to prevent societal chaos. Hobbes likens this authority to a “Leviathan,” a powerful artificial person formed by a social contract to ensure peace and security through collective submission. See also Thomas Hobbes._____________Annotation: The above characterizations of concepts are neither definitions nor exhausting presentations of problems related to them. Instead, they are intended to give a short introduction to the contributions below. – Dictionary of Arguments. | |||
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Mark Lilla on Leviathan - Dictionary of Arguments
Lilla I 91 Leviathan/Hobbes/Lilla: Hobbes‘s Leviathan was widely vilified in the century following its publication. Much of the criticism came from the churches and political theologians, who found Hobbes a convenient whipping boy when the need arose to remind European readers of the dangers of departing from the time-honored institutions of Christendom. >About Th. Hobbes, >Th. Hobbes as author, >Christianity. Hobbes treated human beings as little more than beasts, they said, and would only make them more beastly if he were listened to. He was a rank materialist; he denied the existence of the soul and conscience; he saw all human relations in terms of struggles for power, even within the family; he placed an “earthly God” on God’s own throne. >Materialism, >God. Merely disparaging Hobbes by name was enough to buy authors considerable leeway in developing political ideas that owed much to him, so long as they left the impression they were writing an anti-Leviathan. VsHobbes: Among Hobbes’s sympathetic critics were a number of modern thinkers we associate with the liberal democratic tradition. From its inception the leading figures in this tradition - Spinoza, Locke, Montesquieu, Hume, the authors of the Federalist Papers, and Tocqueville, among others - imagined a new political order in which an authoritarian sovereign of the sort Hobbes imagined could never arise. It was to be an order where power would be limited, divided, and widely shared; where those in power at one moment would relinquish it peacefully at another, without fear of retribution; where public law would govern relations among citizens and institutions; where many different religions would be allowed to flourish, free from state interference; where individuals would have inalienable rights against government and their fellows. This order is the only one we in the West recognize as legitimate today, and it is clearly not the political system Hobbes had in mind. >Spinoza, >Locke, >Montesquieu, >Hume, >Tocqueville. Lilla I 92 Hobbes’s overriding concern was to vanquish the Kingdom of Darkness, the vast complex of church, state, and university university that had governed European politics and consciousness for over a millennium. To that end he developed a new science of man that purported to reveal the inner workings of religious and political behavior and their common sources in the human mind. But even when his science was partially rejected, it still had the effect he intended: it began to reorient the theological-political debates of Christendom away from disputes over divine revelation and toward the proper way to control and canalize the human passions arising from claims to revelation. Hobbes’s liberal critics were, in this sense, all Hobbesians._____________Explanation of symbols: Roman numerals indicate the source, arabic numerals indicate the page number. The corresponding books are indicated on the right hand side. ((s)…): Comment by the sender of the contribution. Translations: Dictionary of Arguments The note [Concept/Author], [Author1]Vs[Author2] or [Author]Vs[term] resp. "problem:"/"solution:", "old:"/"new:" and "thesis:" is an addition from the Dictionary of Arguments. "Vs" indicates differences in content, not necessarily the chronological progression of a controversy. If a German edition is specified, the page numbers refer to this edition. |
Lilla I Mark Lilla The Stillborn God. Religion, Politics, and the Modern West New York: Random House. 2007 |
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